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Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Punishment Stone

Punishment Stone - the hole can be seen a foot below the top

A brilliant photo of Canna’s Punishment Stone at Keils, taken by Olivia Abbott, is on the cover of the current issue of Scottish Islands Explorer. Something not shown in that picture, which you can see in the above image of the stone, is the reason for its name. A
few years ago, while I was taking photos of the stone, one of the archivists
working at Canna House came by. He told me the name comes from an odd hole, a
foot below the top of the stone. Supposedly the thumb of the poor offender was
jammed in the hole, and they were left there for a while.

It’s an odd tale. But even odder is that the RCAHMS
page on the Punishment Stonereferences page 205 of Seton Gordon’s ‘Afoot
In the Hebrides’. A check there shows that Gordon was referring to a three foot
high stone that stands near the Norse Grave, two miles from A’ Chill. Next time
I’m on Canna I will have to look for it. And it makes me wonder if the hole in
the stone at Keils dates from when soldiers used the nearby
Canna Cross for target practice.